Metering for landscape work

[biglouis]

Hello, this is my first post to please be gentle with me!

I've invested in a SWC and I want to use it mainly for urban and country landscape work.

Obviously(!) I have had to purchase an external lightmeter and I purchased a Sekonic L-758.

What tips can you give a newb (the last time I used a lightmeter was about 30 years ago) about technique for using a lightmeter for landscape purposes.

LouisB

 

[curmudgeon]

Hi Louis,

I've owned a lot of different light meters over the years, and I've tried a lot of techniques for using them. I consistently get the best results with a simple indirect reading.

--Doug

 

[biglouis]

Hi Louis,

I've owned a lot of different light meters over the years, and I've tried a lot of techniques for using them. I consistently get the best results with a simple indirect reading.

--Doug

Doug, thanks for the response.

Can you add some practical tips on technique - quite literally a walk through of how you would incident meter a landscape vista?

LouisB

 

[curmudgeon]

Doug, thanks for the response.

Can you add some practical tips on technique - quite literally a walk through of how you would incident meter a landscape vista?

LouisB

Sure, no problem.

The idea of incident light metering is to measure the intensity of the light falling on the subject. Most light meters, including the L-758, have a translucent dome or cone that can be positioned over the receptor for incident measurement. On the Gossen Digisix I use these days it is a little dome that slides into place.

When photographing a subject illuminated by a nearby light source an incident light measurement is made with the meter at the subject location and aimed at the camera location. The measurement has to be made at the subject location because the intensity of the illumination depends on the distance from the light source. If you cannot locate the meter at the subject location then incident measurement is not practical. An example would be actors or musicians on a stage. Fortunately, with a landscape things are easier.

With a landscape, or any other subject illuminated by the sun, the light source is at infinity so there is no need to locate the meter at the subject. Imagine a line from the center of the scene you want to photograph to the camera location. The meter can be located anywhere that has the same kind of light as the subject - direct sunlight, cloud cover, shade, etc. So long as the meter is held parallel to the imaginary line described above and pointed in the subject-to-camera direction it will read exactly as if it was at the subject location.

And finally, a practical example. Last summer I wanted to photograph a wooded hillside across a small lake from our campsite. A reflected light reading would have been thrown off by the specular highlights of the sun reflecting off the waves in the lake. I knew I could deal with them in post processing. It was the foliage across the lake I wanted to render accurately. The subject hillside was in open sunlight. I moved myself - and the camera on its tripod - so that I was also in open sunlight, turned to face directly away from the subject hillside, took just one incident reading, turned back towards the subject and took just one shot. That photo is now on the cover of the camp's new brochure for this year.

An interesting bit of trivia is that an incident light reading will be exactly the same as a reflected light reading of a standard 18% reflectance gray card held at the subject location.

--Doug

 

[biglouis]

Doug

Thank you for such a detailed explanation. Now I understand. I could not get my head around the idea of taking an incident light reading from a subject which might 10s, 100s or even 1000s of yards away from the camera.

I'm off to try out my SWC for the first time this morning and will endeavour to follow this technique, along with an averaging spot meter technique for comparison. I'm going to keep detailed notes so that when I get the results I can learn what does and does not work.

Once again, many thanks!

Louis

 

[polypal]

I certainly do not intend to scare you but metering for the purpose of correct exposure touches the basis principles of photography.
The human eye is able to register a much greater dynamic range than any recording medium we know.

A light meter that averages the amount of light it reaches is calibrated by using a grey card that reflects 18% of the light.
This is an accepted standard and will give good results in the majority of cases.
From the calibration of a light meter that gives an average reading follows that there are exceptions to the rule.
The indicated value registered in a snow landscape is incorrect simply because the light meter sees the white area as a grey subject.
In that case the reading should be changed to give about 2 stops overexposure.

A photographer taking pictures of the black remains of a burned house will under expose because the blackened areas he wants to register are not grey but black.

Scenes with high contrast are often measured using a spot meter.
That gives the photographer the option to select which part of the scene is recorded with full use of the contrast available with the recording medium.

The good thing is modern films allow for a certain amount of overexposure without dramatic negative effects.
In doubt it is beter to over expose than to under expose films.

In general the dynamic range of b/w films is about 6 stops.
Colour film is limited to 1-2 stops less.

 

[curmudgeon]

The indicated value registered in a snow landscape is incorrect simply because the light meter sees the white area as a grey subject.
In that case the reading should be changed to give about 2 stops overexposure.

A photographer taking pictures of the black remains of a burned house will under expose because the blackened areas he wants to register are not grey but black.

This is correct for a reflected light reading. It is not correct for an incident light reading. With an incident light reading black objects will be recorded as black and white objects will be recorded as white with no adjustments being required. That's the beauty of it.

Scenes with high contrast are often measured using a spot meter.
That gives the photographer the option to select which part of the scene is recorded with full use of the contrast available with the recording medium.

Now we're talking about the Zone System where various luminances in the scene are "placed" at particular points on the density range of the negative. I worked this way for a number of years. It had a lot of appeal to me as an engineer. But I eventually had to admit that my percentage of "keepers" was at least as high with a simple incident light reading and a backup shot over exposed by one stop for particularly contrasty scenes.

Whatever type of metering one chooses to use it is important to stick with it long enough to determine the best ISO rating for each film being used and to learn how it works in a wide variety of situations.

--Doug

 

[biglouis]

Thanks again for the advice. I've shot a test film using incident reading but not had it processed yet.

LouisB

 

[wbulte]

In doubt it is beter to over expose than to under expose films.

This assumes (and quite reasonably so) that you are shooting negative film.

Chrome / slide film has a much more demanding tolerance. As in: 1/3 of a stop is already quite visible in the end result. That said: a properly exposed MF slide on the light box is a thing of beauty you must have seen at least once.

Wilko

 

[curmudgeon]

This assumes (and quite reasonably so) that you are shooting negative film.

Chrome / slide film has a much more demanding tolerance. As in: 1/3 of a stop is already quite visible in the end result. That said: a properly exposed MF slide on the light box is a thing of beauty you must have seen at least once.

Wilko

That's a good point. Most of my experience is with B&W negative film, and that is the basis for my comments above.

--Doug

 

[polypal]

Now we're talking about the Zone System where various luminances in the scene are "placed" at particular points on the density range of the negative. I worked this way for a number of years. It had a lot of appeal to me as an engineer. But I eventually had to admit that my percentage of "keepers" was at least as high with a simple incident light reading and a backup shot over exposed by one stop for particularly contrasty scenes.

--Doug

The zone system goes a bit further and requires the film to be developed according to the need to extend or limit dynamic range.

Whatever type of metering one chooses to use it is important to stick with it long enough to determine the best ISO rating for each film being used and to learn how it works in a wide variety of situations.

--Doug

Absolutely true.